Desirability of medicine as a profession in developing countries: the case of Turkey

Medicine has always been an appealing profession. However, some studies have shown that the medical profession in Turkey appeared to lose some of its appeal around the 1990s. The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent young people currently prefer the medical profession in Turkey as an example for developing countries. This descriptive study aims to evaluate and compare the selection and preferences of candidates between medical and industrial engineering programs in state universities between 1985 and 2009. The main indicators used in this study was the success rank" of the candidates, that refers to the candidate's placement in the list of student-scores sorted in descending order, and further grouped into 100. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15, and percentage distribution and chi-square tests were applied. There were 21 medical faculties in state universities in 1985; this number reached 53 in 2009. The success rank of registered students decreased between 1985 and 2000 and then increased continuously thereafter. A significant difference between faculties in terms of the registration rate of the students who scored in the top 3% was determined in all years evaluated in this study (p < 0.05). This study clearly shows that although medicine was less popular among university candidates before 2000, it gradually gained in popularity, reaching its highest levels in 2008 and 2009.